Theodora Anavhe Adamu Foundation

11/10/2026

07/08/2026

We keep telling mothers to breastfeed.

But are we creating the conditions that make breastfeeding possible?

A mother may want to breastfeed and still struggle because she has returned to work, spends hours commuting, works in a market without a private space, or has nowhere to turn when challenges arise.

Sometimes, the problem isn't that she doesn't know what to do. The system simply hasn't made it possible.

This World Breastfeeding Week, let's strengthen what works: supportive health workers, facilities, workplaces, families, communities and policies.

Because breastfeeding is not a mother's responsibility alone.

It is a shared responsibility. 🤱🏽

01/06/2026

The first half of the year has been a season of reflection, refinement, and renewed clarity for us at Theodora Anavhe Adamu Foundation (TAAF).

Over the past few months, we have taken a deliberate step back-not from our mission, but to strengthen it.

As an organisation founded in memory of Theodora Anavhe Adamu and built on a commitment to safe motherhood, reproductive health, and dignity for women and girls, we recognised the importance of pausing to ask some fundamental questions:

What have we learned from more than a decade of community engagement?

Where can we create the greatest value today?

How do we position ourselves to contribute meaningfully to Nigeria's maternal and reproductive health priorities in the years ahead?

The answers have shaped our strategic direction for 2026 and beyond.

We have refined our focus around four core areas:

• Safe Motherhood & Maternal Survival
• Community-PHC Systems Strengthening
• Sexual & Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) for Girls and Women
• Maternal Health Accountability, Evidence & Learning

These pillars build on our legacy work, from the MAISHA initiative and HER Hygiene & HER Campaign to our advocacy for women in vulnerable settings and our exploration of accountability approaches for maternal health systems.

More importantly, they reflect a simple belief: improving outcomes for women and girls requires stronger connections between communities, health facilities, decision-makers, and the systems that support them.

As we look ahead to the rest of the year, our focus is on building partnerships, strengthening institutional capacity, sharing evidence and learning, and contributing to practical solutions that improve the lives of women and girls across Nigeria.

To everyone who has supported, partnered with, encouraged, or followed our journey over the years-thank you.

The work continues, and we are excited about what lies ahead.

28/05/2026

Menstrual health is not a side conversation in public health.

It is a dignity issue, an education issue, an equity issue, and a systems issue.

Today, on Menstrual Hygiene Day, we join the global call for a , one where no girl misses school because of her period, no woman is forced to choose unsafe alternatives because sanitary products are unaffordable, and no one is made to feel shame about a natural biological process.

Across many underserved communities, period poverty remains a daily reality.

Beyond access to menstrual products, girls and women continue to face stigma, limited information, inadequate sanitation facilities, and environments that make menstruation difficult to manage safely and with dignity.

At Theodora Anavhe Adamu Foundation (TAAF), our work through the HER Hygiene & HER Campaign has always been rooted in a simple belief:

menstrual health is part of reproductive health, and reproductive health is fundamental to the wellbeing, confidence, and future of women and girls.

Over the years, we have worked with schools, communities, and vulnerable populations to expand menstrual health education, promote dignity, and improve access to essential hygiene support, while continuing to advocate for systems that respond better to the realities girls and women face.

Creating a period-friendly world will require more than one-day conversations.

It will require investment, education, policy attention, and collective responsibility.

Because dignity should never depend on whether someone can afford a pad.

15/04/2026

Safe motherhood is often spoken about as awareness.

But in reality, it is about whether systems work when it matters most.

A woman can know the importance of antenatal care and still delay care because transport is uncertain. She can arrive at a primary health centre and still face delays because referral systems are weak. She can do everything right, and still be failed by the system around her.

This is why safe motherhood is not just a health issue.

It is a systems issue.

As we celebrate Safe Motherhood Day, it is important to move beyond messaging and look closely at what determines outcomes:
➡️ Can women access care early and consistently?
➡️ Do referral pathways function when complications arise?
➡️ Are primary health centres equipped, trusted, and responsive?
➡️ Is there accountability when gaps occur?

At the Theodora Anavhe Adamu Foundation (TAAF), our work is grounded in these questions.

From strengthening community-facility linkages, to advancing equitable access to SRHR services, to supporting accountability and learning within maternal health systems, we focus on what makes safe motherhood possible in practice, not just in principle.

Because safe motherhood is not achieved by awareness alone.

It is achieved when systems are designed to respond, consistently, equitably, and on time.

09/03/2026

This year’s International Women’s Day theme: “Give to Gain: Generosity, Collaboration and Collective Uplift”, reminds us that meaningful progress for women and girls is rarely achieved in isolation.

It happens when communities, health systems, and institutions work together.

At the Theodora Anavhe Adamu Foundation (TAAF), this principle has shaped our journey for over a decade.

Founded in memory of Theodora Anavhe Adamu, whose passing during childbirth reflects the reality many families still face, TAAF continues to work toward a future where no woman dies from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth.

As we move into our next phase, our work focuses on three key priorities:

• Strengthening community-facility linkages so that women can access timely antenatal care, safe delivery services, and effective referral pathways when complications arise.

• Advancing equity in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) by ensuring that adolescent girls and underserved women have access to accurate information, menstrual dignity, and essential reproductive health services.

• Promoting accountability and learning in maternal health systems, supporting communities, PHCs, and local governments to use data and evidence to improve maternal health outcomes.

These priorities reflect the call of this year’s International Women’s Day theme, and the global demand for “Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls.”

For us, giving means investing in women’s health, strengthening community voice, and working collaboratively with health systems so that every woman can access the care she deserves with dignity.

Because when women are healthy, informed, and supported, entire communities move forward.




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03/03/2026

In many communities, women are the first to notice when something is wrong.

They are the ones who remind others about clinic days.

They accompany neighbors to primary health centers.

They sit for hours in waiting areas, sometimes as patients, sometimes as caregivers, often as both.

They are mothers navigating pregnancy.

They are daughters supporting ageing parents.

They are community mobilisers.

They are health workers.

They are the invisible infrastructure holding the system together.

Yet maternal health conversations often reduce women to outcomes-mortality rates, coverage percentages, utilization statistics.

But maternal health is also about how systems treat women’s time, dignity, and labor.

Do services respect the fact that women juggle multiple responsibilities before arriving at a facility?

Are referral systems responsive when complications arise?

Do primary health centers feel safe, efficient, and trustworthy?

At Theodora Anavhe Adamu Foundation (TAAF), our work in safe motherhood and community–PHC systems strengthening begins with this understanding: women are not passive recipients of care. They are active participants in how health systems function.

As we approach International Women’s Day, it is worth reflecting not only on celebrating women, but on whether our health systems are designed with their realities at the center.

Because when systems recognize women as central, not peripheral, maternal health outcomes begin to change.


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24/02/2026

After more than ten years of working in communities on maternal and reproductive health, one lesson keeps repeating itself:

➡️ real impact does not come from one-off projects.

It comes from systems that are willing to learn.

We have sat in small community meetings where women explained why they booked antenatal care late. Not because they didn’t know it was important, but because transport costs were unpredictable or they were not sure the facility would attend to them quickly.

We have also looked at facility data that tells a different story, missed visits, delayed referrals, gaps that numbers alone cannot fully explain.

When you place these two side by side, something becomes clear.

Communities hold lived experience.

Health facilities hold the records.

But unless systems are designed to listen to both and respond, the same gaps quietly repeat themselves year after year.

For us, accountability and data are not just reporting tools.

They are a way of paying attention.

A way of asking, “What are women telling us through their choices, their delays, their journeys to care?”

As we step into a new phase of partnerships, we carry these lessons with us.

The goal is not to start louder projects.

It is to support stronger systems, systems that reflect, adjust, and do better over time.

Because when systems learn, women feel the difference.

And sometimes, that difference is the line between risk and survival.